About a week ago, Netflix expanded its service internationally in a move no one had anticipated. Before this, most people who watched Netflix in most countries such as Kenya did so by using VPNs and proxies. This allowed them to access the US content that had a wide selection of movies and TV series.
With international expansion, Netflix has announced that it will start cracking down on those subscribers who are accessing the Netflix US catalogue by using VPNs and proxies. This will not settle very well with most of those who are already using proxies or VPNs to access Netflix in Kenya as the catalogue available in the country has very limited content compared to the US catalogue.
Netflix on its part had this to say about this move, “If all of our content were globally available, there wouldn’t be a reason for members to use proxies or unblockers to fool our systems into thinking they’re in a different country than they’re actually in,” said Fullagar. He said that they are working on licensing content across the world but that will take time before they will be able to show the same films and TV series to all subscribers.
As to how the company will handle things in the future, Fullagar said, “To address this, we will employ similar measures other firms do. This technology continues to evolve and we are evolving with it. That means in the coming weeks, those using proxies and unblockers will only be able to access the service in the country where they currently are.”
“Over time, we anticipate being able to do so. For now, given the historic practice of licensing content by geographic territories, the TV shows and movies we offer differ, to varying degrees, by territory. In the meantime, we will continue to respect and enforce content licensing by geographic location.”
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